8 Benefits of Bulk SMS Marketing for Business

by Audrey Oh

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There are currently more than 3 billion smartphone users worldwide and this figure is projected to increase year-on-year. Unsurprisingly, businesses are increasingly using SMS (Short Message Service) messaging as part of their customer service and engagement strategies. SMS marketing allows you to schedule and broadcast customised messages to groups or individual recipients. It&#;s a great way to capture the attention of your target audience and to encourage an immediate response. 

We may not all be on our 24/7, but many of us are inseparable from our mobile phones. So why should you invest time and money in SMS messaging? Is it right for your business? We&#;ve put together the top eight benefits of bulk SMS marketing to help you decide.

1. Instant Impact
   Unlike emails, which may not be picked up for days, or direct mail, which may take days to be delivered, an SMS takes less than 7 seconds to reach the intended recipient. Provided you have the correct number, you can rest assured your message will be delivered &#; and ultra-fast too.
2. High Open Rate
   The open rate of SMS messages has been reported to be as high as 99% compared to just 20% for emails. Of course, not everyone who reads your text will respond. But it stands to reason there is a higher chance of someone responding to your marketing if they&#;ve seen your message than if they have not. People open nearly every text message they receive, many choose to delete an without opening it.
3. Customisable Campaigns
   Bulk SMS marketing allows you to target your whole database of contacts, a sub-group or even an individual. Personalising your marketing campaign is key to its success. You&#;ll want to send a different text to prospects than to existing customers, for example. It&#;s quick and easy to set up templates and customise an SMS each time you send one out. Consumers are much more likely to respond to a message that appeals specifically to them than to a generic or irrelevant message.
4. Impressive Conversion Rate
   At around 6%, response rates for are notoriously low. However, a response rate of 45% for SMS is not unusual and may often be even higher. Most people respond to a text within 90 seconds, compared to 90 minutes for . Whatever the objective of your marketing campaign &#; promotions, surveys or sign-ups &#; you will receive a higher response rate than with any other marketing strategy with SMS.
5. Few Barriers to Delivery
   Marketing emails often never reach their intended recipient due to spam filters. This is not the case with SMS. There are no barriers to delivery, so SMS messaging is highly reliable.
6. Minimal Effort Required from Recipients
   There is a 160-character length for SMS, forcing marketers to deliver their message in a concise, easy-to-read way. Brief messages make it much easier for recipients to understand the crux of your SMS campaign than if they have to wade through a lengthy . Most service providers offer a variety of features that makes responding to your bulk SMS marketing a breeze. The easier you make it for the recipient to read, understand and respond to your message, the more likely they are to do so!
7. Cost-Effective
   Compared to the cost of other marketing methods, such as TV, radio or print, SMS bulk marketing is very affordable. Messaging is low cost and delivers a higher return on investment (ROI) than many other marketing strategies, making it a cost-effective and sustainable option.

   Instant Opt-In and Opt-OutRecipients can opt-in or opt-out of your SMS marketing at the touch of a button. While you might see this as a disadvantage, it&#;s important for your business and consumers that you only target individuals who are interested in your product or service. This stops you wasting time and money on cold leads, builds your reputation as a trustworthy company and protects individuals from unwanted marketing. 

SMS marketing has almost limitless potential due to the sheer number of smartphone users worldwide and the extraordinary open rates. The benefits of bulk SMS marketing for small business are many and varied. 

Why not check out Callstream&#;s bulk SMS service and talk to our team about signing up or adding this to your existing package? Call us on 400 and get started today.

Organizations of all sizes have turned to bulk SMS marketing to reach their target audiences in real time, and in a cost-effective and easy-to-implement way.

Bulk SMS marketing is quickly becoming popular among businesses, as it lets them maintain relationships with existing customers while reaching out to potential new ones. With the right strategy, bulk SMS marketing can help brands engage with customers and prospects more effectively.

To implement a successful bulk SMS campaign, marketing leaders must understand how it works and how it differs from other forms of communication.

What is bulk SMS marketing?

Bulk SMS marketing is a type of digital marketing strategy that enables businesses to send text messages directly to customers and prospects. When marketers send text messages, they travel directly from a business's SMS services into the recipient's mobile device. This direct connection ensures customers see messages almost immediately, which can give organizations an instant response rate compared to other methods, such as or social media posts.

With bulk SMS messaging, marketers can draft a message template once and use the same template each time they want to promote their products or services -- similar to how automated emails are built and distributed. Marketers can determine which message to send and when to send it based on segmented lists or actions a user takes that may trigger communications.

This direct form of communication enables brands to create personalized messages tailored specifically for their target audiences. If marketers use data from customer preferences and purchase histories, they can craft more effective campaigns to grab customers' attention and enable higher conversion rates. Bulk SMS messages also let marketers track response rates and measure campaign effectiveness with ease. With this strategy, they can optimize their message templates for better results.

Overall, bulk SMS marketing offers an effective way for organizations of all sizes to engage with customers. It has quickly become one of the most popular forms of digital marketing due to its convenience and ability to deliver instant results.

10 steps for bulk SMS marketing

To make a bulk SMS marketing strategy work, these 10 steps can help marketers implement, improve, monitor and optimize their messaging strategy.

1. Ensure customers opt in to receive messages

Firstly, marketers should not send text messages to customers or prospects that have not opted in to receive messages. Organizations are legally required to obtain permission for these types of communications.

Customers that opt in to communications also provide marketing teams with increased engagement and deliverability -- two key metrics for success in bulk SMS texting programs.

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2. Research the target audience

When marketing teams develop campaigns to target prospects and customers, they must do the necessary research to understand customers' demographic information, interests and preferences.

This information helps teams craft effective messaging tailored specifically to their target audience and is more likely to resonate with them when they engage with the content.

3. Segment customers to improve engagement

After marketers research their target audience, they can build segments within a database to ensure customers receive the right message targeted to them.

Marketing teams can base segments on customers' demographics, interests and preferences, so teams can personalize messages. Segments can also take information from past purchases or engagement to tell marketers to interact with an audience that has shown high interest in the brand's products or services. This personalization can lead to increased open rates and higher customer engagement.

4. Create message templates

If marketers take the time to create and set up text message templates, they can simplify how they distribute bulk SMS communications with minimal investment or effort.

Message templates should outline the information that teams plan to share with each audience. This information can include promotional offers, product updates, new product releases or special seasonal communications.

5. Schedule messages

Marketers must decide when it is most appropriate to send a message to a recipient in a bulk SMS marketing campaign. To identify the best times, teams should identify customers' habits and patterns in engagement data, such as open rates or click-through rates.

The timing of bulk SMS sends can affect engagement rates, because they are designed for customers to see and act on them quickly without much effort.

6. Automate bulk message sending

If an organization plans to execute SMS marketing campaigns to a wide audience, automation can benefit the overall strategy.

Marketing teams can use automation triggers based on end users or around promotional periods, like holidays. These triggers ensure customers receive messages based on a set of rules set up from the automations, making message delivery more effective and timely.

7. Design engaging campaigns

The message templates are central to full campaign design, as they can ensure the messages and campaigns will grab the recipients' attention and encourage them to interact.

The campaigns can also be a part of a larger multichannel effort, where marketers can send out bulk SMS messages in support of other channels within the campaign, such as , advertising, account-based marketing and social media.

8. Monitor campaign performance

After marketers launch the bulk SMS marketing campaign and ensure they send messages in a timely fashion, they must monitor and track the campaign's performance. This can include the following metrics:

• Response rates.
• Conversion rates.
• Open rates.
• Click-through rates.

This monitoring can help marketers quickly adjust the campaign with little effort based on metrics and feedback.

9. Analyze results and optimize

When marketers monitor the campaign's performance, they should identify optimization opportunities. This could relate to when messages are sent, the accuracy of the list segmentation, the calls to action, the length of the messages, etc.

The measurement and optimization of campaigns enables a cyclical campaign to go to market, with the model to plan, launch, measure, optimize and repeat the process.

10. Provide an opt-out option

Just like marketers should ensure recipients opt in to receive text messages, it is equally important to provide an opt-out feature. Giving users an option to stop receiving communications can enable a positive experience. It also helps marketers monitor key metrics, as they can avoid sending messages to users who either do not want them or no longer find value in them.

Giving users control over their experience also helps make the audience more relevant, so marketers only send messages to people who truly want to hear from the brand.

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